ISIS
Users browsing this topic:0 Registered, 0 Hidden and 0 Guests
Registered Users: None |
 |
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: |  |
|
| Jezza wrote: | | I think the articles consider quite a few interesting points rather than simplistically stating that the Iraq invasion in 2003 caused the current turmoil in Iraq and Syria today. |
You think so? Anyone would think you believe cause and effect is linear or something!
Jezza, the idiots who invaded Iraq already had that information and much, much more. They begged you to give them responsibility, and spent trillions of dollars on taking it. So, unless you want to introduce a more precise definition of "cause" here—and your language elsewhere shows you don't—they most certainly did cause it. They took your money, and took control of a country and other people's lives by force, and thus took causal responsibility at a national and political level for all that followed.
I liked this quote:
| Your blog man wrote: | | Saddam didn’t have to appeal to Islam, he chose to, and always had, and the Ba’ath was interwoven with Islam from the start. Helfont himself notes “the Ba’th Party’s time-honored reverence for Islam”. The Ba’ath’s founder, Michel Aflaq, himself a Christian (who seems to have converted to Islam before he died), said that when Arab Christians’ “nationalism is fully awakened” they will see their way to Islam. And Makiya expands on this by pointing out that Ba’athism was “bound up” with Islam in a historical, political, and societal manner that “renders the term secularism useless with respect to understanding Ba’thi politics.” |
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/iraq-is-still-suffering-the-effects-of-saddam-husseins-islamist-regime/
Yes, exactly!
Jezza, this is the point some of us have been banging our heads raw about when it comes to the buffoonish, pre-scientific caricatures of religion put forward by the New Atheists and others in debates about Islam.
Religion is ideology, and in the long run, ideology is culture, and culture in turn is a set of shared ways of getting stuff done in the world, structured according to certain basic power relations.
As an example, communism and and trickle-down austerity economics are also every bit religions, and both readily harness whatever other ideologies are hanging about in order to achieve their goals, from nationalism to Confucianism in Asia, and even Christianity in Latin America.
As an example, take the case of trickle-down economics. Once it has been around for a while (it has much older roots, but let's start with St. Reagan's popularisation of it), it starts becoming religion (with even evangelical religion often reshaping Christianity into one giant trickle-down metaphor), which eventually becomes everyday culture and politics, such that US presidents have to pretend to be Christian.
All regimes will grab whatever convenient nonsense is laying about to achieve their ends. Inevitably, that includes nationalism, which implies the religious ideas and lineage that contribute to defining a shared national identity. As such, of course Saddam was deeply involved with Islam at all sorts of levels, here opposing factions and factional ideas, there utilising them.
But, again, we knew all this long before invading Iraq. I studied it in Year 10 when we looked at the Iran-Iraq War in the context of the Cold War, for goodness' sake.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm
Last edited by pietillidie on Mon Oct 05, 2015 10:53 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
|
|
 |
Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| think positive wrote: | | Morrigu wrote: | ^ yes you are right but I am sick of these people - I am sick of seeing what they do and trying to patch up the physical wounds with no ability to heal the physiological and I am sick of government and associated wordsmiths talking about the big picture - the big picture ain't working!!
I am wound up atm - and have been chastised ( sort of  ) by hubby for my out of control ( read too many f's) language tonight and rational thought is currently illuding me ( if I ever had it)
I have done 3 stints O/S with MSF and I think someone who - if I was a religious person I would describe as an angel has lost their life just doing the right thing - always did the right thing 
I'm irrational and should be ignored!!! |
No you shouldn't, god help us if the world was ruled solely buy rational, unemotional, men!
we need to get angry, and stay angry about what's going on, it's clearly becoming a global situation. |
Anyone who is not angry, at some level, about ISIS is probably missing a moral clutch-plate. They must be destroyed ; I just do not think that we can do it. Our involvement tends to make things even more unstable and stoke more crime from a Sunni-Shia fight within the Islamic world. I agree with you that taking large numbers of able-bodied young men into Germany is probably worsening the problem, however.
_________________
Two more flags before I die! |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Morrigu wrote: | ^ yes you are right but I am sick of these people - I am sick of seeing what they do and trying to patch up the physical wounds with no ability to heal the psychological and I am sick of government and associated wordsmiths talking about the big picture - the big picture ain't working!!
I am wound up atm - and have been chastised ( sort of ) by hubby for my out of control ( read too many f's) language tonight and rational thought is currently illuding me ( if I ever had it)
I have done 3 stints O/S with MSF and I think someone who - if I was a religious person I would describe as an angel has lost their life just doing the right thing - always did the right thing
I'm irrational and should be ignored!!! |
LOL - no, no. It's about what information is accessible in certain situations at certain times. That's not a dismissal, it's a necessary compartmentalisation.
Have you got good third-party support there to bounce off and debrief with?
I'm sure you're much tougher than me, but please make sure you look after yourself. Dark movies get to me, let alone the situation you're engaging!
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
Jezza 
2023 PREMIERS!
Joined: 06 Sep 2010
Location: Ponsford End
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| pietillidie wrote: | | Jezza wrote: | | I think the articles consider quite a few interesting points rather than simplistically stating that the Iraq invasion in 2003 caused the current turmoil in Iraq and Syria today. |
You think so? Anyone would think you believe cause and effect is linear or something!
Jezza, the idiots who invaded Iraq already had that information and much, much more. They begged you to give them responsibility, and spent trillions of dollars on taking it. So, unless you want to introduce a more precise definition of "cause" here—and your language elsewhere shows you don't—they most certainly did cause it. They took your money, and took control of a country and other people's lives by force, and thus took causal responsibility at a national and political level for all that followed.
I liked this quote:
| Your blog man wrote: | | Saddam didn’t have to appeal to Islam, he chose to, and always had, and the Ba’ath was interwoven with Islam from the start. Helfont himself notes “the Ba’th Party’s time-honored reverence for Islam”. The Ba’ath’s founder, Michel Aflaq, himself a Christian (who seems to have converted to Islam before he died), said that when Arab Christians’ “nationalism is fully awakened” they will see their way to Islam. And Makiya expands on this by pointing out that Ba’athism was “bound up” with Islam in a historical, political, and societal manner that “renders the term secularism useless with respect to understanding Ba’thi politics.” |
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/iraq-is-still-suffering-the-effects-of-saddam-husseins-islamist-regime/
Yes, exactly!
Jezza, this is the point some of us have been banging our heads raw about when it comes to the buffoonish, pre-scientific caricatures of religion put forward by the New Atheists and others in debates about Islam.
Religion is ideology, and in the long run, ideology is culture, and culture in turn is a set of shared ways of getting stuff done in the world, structured according to certain basic power relations.
As an example, communism and and trickle-down austerity economics are also every bit religions, and both readily harness whatever other ideologies are hanging about in order to achieve their goals, from nationalism to Confucianism in Asia, and even Christianity in Latin America.
As an example, take the case of trickle-down economics. Once it has been around for a while (it has much older roots, but let's start with St. Reagan's popularisation of it), it starts becoming religion (with even evangelical religion often reshaping Christianity into one giant trickle-down metaphor), which eventually becomes everyday culture and politics, such that US presidents have to pretend to be Christian.
All regimes will grab whatever convenient nonsense is laying about to achieve their ends. Inevitably, that includes nationalism, which implies the religious ideas and lineage that contribute to defining a shared national identity. As such, of course Saddam was deeply involved with Islam at all sorts of levels, here opposing factions and factional ideas, there utilising them.
But, again, we knew all this long before invading Iraq. I studied it in Year 10 when we looked at the Iran-Iraq War in the context of the Cold War, for goodness' sake. |
Yes the emergence of ISIS can be attributed to the Iraq invasion in 2003. No one is doubting that a power vacuum was created as a result of Saddam's removal and the de-baathification of Iraq but I'm attempting to understand why such a power vacuum existed along with the US' obvious incompetence by entering the region in the first place which played a significant role in this whole debacle.
That's why I'm interested in referring to Saddam's reign of power when Iraq was a dominant minority from 1968 to 2003, Nouri Al-Maliki's reign of power in the past five years, the ideology behind Wahhabism/Salafism, the emergence of Iran as a serious force in the middle-east after the Shah's overthrow, how Kuwait's independence caused further problems and pretty much caused the Gulf War 30 years later, how the state of Iraq was created after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and of course the Islamic sectarian wars that can be traced back to the prophet Muhammad's death 1400 years ago.
Also in terms of religion is ideology, are you saying that a distinction cannot be made between Islam and Islamism?
_________________
| 1902 | 1903 | 1910 | 1917 | 1919 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1935 | 1936 | 1953 | 1958 | 1990 | 2010 | 2023 | |
|
|
|
|
Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| pietillidie wrote: | | Jezza wrote: | | I think the articles consider quite a few interesting points rather than simplistically stating that the Iraq invasion in 2003 caused the current turmoil in Iraq and Syria today. |
You think so? Anyone would think you believe cause and effect is linear or something!
Jezza, the idiots who invaded Iraq already had that information and much, much more. They begged you to give them responsibility, and spent trillions of dollars on taking it. So, unless you want to introduce a more precise definition of "cause" here—and your language elsewhere shows you don't—they most certainly did cause it. They took your money, and took control of a country and other people's lives by force, and thus took causal responsibility at a national and political level for all that followed.
I liked this quote:
| Your blog man wrote: | | Saddam didn’t have to appeal to Islam, he chose to, and always had, and the Ba’ath was interwoven with Islam from the start. Helfont himself notes “the Ba’th Party’s time-honored reverence for Islam”. The Ba’ath’s founder, Michel Aflaq, himself a Christian (who seems to have converted to Islam before he died), said that when Arab Christians’ “nationalism is fully awakened” they will see their way to Islam. And Makiya expands on this by pointing out that Ba’athism was “bound up” with Islam in a historical, political, and societal manner that “renders the term secularism useless with respect to understanding Ba’thi politics.” |
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/iraq-is-still-suffering-the-effects-of-saddam-husseins-islamist-regime/
Yes, exactly!
Jezza, this is the point some of us have been banging our heads raw about when it comes to the buffoonish, pre-scientific caricatures of religion put forward by the New Atheists and others in debates about Islam.
Religion is ideology, and in the long run, ideology is culture, and culture in turn is a set of shared ways of getting stuff done in the world, structured according to certain basic power relations.
As an example, communism and and trickle-down austerity economics are also every bit religions, and both readily harness whatever other ideologies are hanging about in order to achieve their goals, from nationalism to Confucianism in Asia, and even Christianity in Latin America.
As an example, take the case of trickle-down economics. Once it has been around for a while (it has much older roots, but let's start with St. Reagan's popularisation of it), it starts becoming religion (with even evangelical religion often reshaping Christianity into one giant trickle-down metaphor), which eventually becomes everyday culture and politics, such that US presidents have to pretend to be Christian.
All regimes will grab whatever convenient nonsense is laying about to achieve their ends. Inevitably, that includes nationalism, which implies the religious ideas and lineage that contribute to defining a shared national identity. As such, of course Saddam was deeply involved with Islam at all sorts of levels, here opposing factions and factional ideas, there utilising them.
But, again, we knew all this long before invading Iraq. I studied it in Year 10 when we looked at the Iran-Iraq War in the context of the Cold War, for goodness' sake. |
^ I know what you are saying, and I partly agree - but trickle-down economics (which is a very imprecise term) is poor economics if taken to extremes, but it's not really the same thing as a religion.
To some extent, you can prove or disprove the premises of trickle-down economics against a set of hypotheses - indeed, I think it has been largely disproved by events of the last 30 years. You cannot do that with a belief system that claims its validation from things outside this world. Religion may be a good metaphor for adherence to untestable or unprovable beliefs, but it is not the same thing. No religion falls like communism fell in the face of evidence.
_________________
Two more flags before I die! |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Jezza, in the framework I have suggested, they would simply be different ideologies, or ideological variations.
For a different ideology to be markedly different and sustainable, it would need to access a different cultural substrate at some point with which it can integrate. In the case of the minor extremist apocalyptic Islamic sects you call "Islamists", they thrive on a broken, chaotic form of the old culture, enabling them to position as "righteous reformers". Chaos and insecurity are their schtick.
In the case of the more mainstream, hard line sects, they don't have the same direct mission of wrecking the joint like apocalypticists because they're seeking long-term power and control over society and its resources, so it's not in their interest to damage assets if they can avoid it, though they will still do so if they have to. It also means they will work hard to lay claim to the mainstream culture.
So, you can certainly have multiple ideologies side-by-side, with there being enough variation in the culture to sustain them, and the major ideologies all laying claim to the "mainstream" by definition.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
Jezza
2023 PREMIERS!
Joined: 06 Sep 2010
Location: Ponsford End
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| pietillidie wrote: | Jezza, in the framework I have suggested, they would simply be different ideologies, or ideological variations.
For a different ideology to be markedly different and sustainable, it would need to access a different cultural substrate at some point with which it can integrate. In the case of the minor extremist apocalyptic Islamic sects you call "Islamists", they thrive on a broken, chaotic form of the old culture, enabling them to position as "righteous reformers". Chaos and insecurity are their schtick.
In the case of the more mainstream, hard line sects, they don't have the same direct mission of wrecking the joint like apocalypticists because they're seeking long-term power and control over society and its resources, so it's not in their interest to damage assets if they can avoid it, though they will still do so if they have to. It also means they will work hard to lay claim to the mainstream culture. |
I completely agree with you especially when you differentiate between "minor extremist apocalyptic Islamic sects" and more mainstream hardline sects considering there's a schism amongst jihadist circles as we speak. You don't need to look further than ISIS against other groups like Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front and Jaysh Al-Islam to see that all these groups consider ISIS to be a cancer to their cause. You definitely articulate this far better than I do but you're right about the way these groups perceive themselves to the mainstream culture of the region.
Also you're spot on about chaos and insecurity being the two core elements that groups like ISIS thrive on to gain and maintain territory! That's why I've always maintained that they would be successful in some parts of Syria, Iraq, Libya and possibly Yemen but they would struggle in stable nations such as Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia for example. Sectarian divisions is what causes these groups to be successful hence I think anyone confronting these groups needs to address the sectarian problem if they are going to successfully destroy ISIS' power base, however I remain pessimistic that Middle Eastern nations will ever achieve be able to find a solution to this problem in our lifetime. After all this has been an issue that has ravaged the Middle East for 1400 years but has become progressively worse since Salafist groups had influence in the region.
_________________
| 1902 | 1903 | 1910 | 1917 | 1919 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1935 | 1936 | 1953 | 1958 | 1990 | 2010 | 2023 | |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Mugwump wrote: | I know what you are saying, and I partly agree - but trickle-down economics (which is a very imprecise term) is poor economics if taken to extremes, but it's not really the same thing as a religion.
To some extent, you can prove or disprove the premises of trickle-down economics against a set of hypotheses - indeed, I think it has been largely disproved by events of the last 30 years. You cannot do that with a belief system that claims its validation from things outside this world. Religion may be a good metaphor for adherence to untestable or unprovable beliefs, but it is not the same thing. No religion falls like communism fell in the face of evidence. |
It's the new atheist misconception of religion that's the problem here: First, they obsess over the theism bit because that's what they focused on when they first started engaging religion, further reinforced later in Western history and philosophy classes. It's essentially an autistic guide to religion, though, given religion is a psycho-social phenomenon above all.
The existence of "god" is a very primal cognitive assumption that can readily be buried beneath layers of other important stuff which have nothing to do with questions of fact or fiction. It's the social community and people's broader conception of their place in society as provided by the religion which is the real key.
Once those roots are established it's an entire social edifice people are buying into, with the fundamental stuff having nothing to do with doctrinal claims except where the latter reinforces the former. The vital, fundamental stuff includes things like: The sanctity of the nuclear family; the need to obey senior men as family leaders and providers; the need to support senior men as business leaders and community providers; the need to pay tithe to keep the church strong as the social order's moral control centre; the need to put threats to the system in their place, such as black men and unapproved drug use; the need to forgive good people who uphold the system even if they do wrong, and the need to condemn those who challenge the system even when they do no wrong; the need to uphold the genetic purity of the system controlling the virginity of young women to ensure they only marry approved men who uphold the system; the need to defend the right to shoot the godless if need be; and so on.
By the same token, certain fundamental structural notions are also way more important for trickle-down fanatics than actual economics. Much like the existence of god, questions of economics are vague enough to be relegated to obscure debate; it's the underlying assumption of needing great men to guide us and provide jobs for us which matters here. Without their approval and "happiness", jobs vanish, economies slow down, enemies attack. As with the gods, we need to appease them and sing their praises; not incite their wrath. They are, after all, responsible for all that is good around us, including creating all the wealth we see in six days. And so on.
And you get those massive overlaps here between the two ideologies I'm describing because they're rooted in the very same culture. If you knew cultures elsewhere well enough, you could describe Islam and its fundamental social map and power relations in the very same way. (And if people can't do that, we can dismiss their understanding of the problem out of hand; they're basically unqualified).
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
|
| Post subject: | |
|
^ PTID, I agree with much that you wrote above, but I still think the theism matters, because (a) it matters deeply to the adherents and it determines, in part, their conduct ; and (b) it places those behaviours outside the realm of appeal to reason. To use the extreme example, the suicide bombers act as they do not (just) because of some social construct, but because they believe that they are going to some place beyond this corrupted world. The theism is the most important fact.
Whereas mere politicians ask to be judged by the world, theocrats expect to be judged by the next world. That is why religion makes such dangerous politics, and why the enlightenment started the process of detaching church and state.
_________________
Two more flags before I die! |
|
|
|
|
Jezza
2023 PREMIERS!
Joined: 06 Sep 2010
Location: Ponsford End
|
| Post subject: | |
|
The Iraqi army reclaim the town of Baiji (north of Tikrit) from ISIS with some saying it could be a good platform for the offensive planned to retake Mosul at some point in the future.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/10/20/434234/Iraq-army-Baiji-Salahuddin-Daesh
| Quote: | Iraqi forces and volunteer fighters have managed to liberate a major northern town from the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, military officials say.
The spokesman of Iraq’s Joint Military Command Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said on Tuesday that army troops and paramilitary fighters, known as Popular Mobilization Forces, retook the town of Baiji in Salahuddin Province earlier in the day.
Baiji is located about 180 kilometers (112 miles) south of the major city of Mosul, which fell to the Takfiri militants in June 2014. The town, which is home to Iraq’s largest oil refinery, has been the scene of fierce clashes between terrorists and pro-government forces over the past weeks. |
_________________
| 1902 | 1903 | 1910 | 1917 | 1919 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1935 | 1936 | 1953 | 1958 | 1990 | 2010 | 2023 | |
|
|
|
|
think positive 
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Jezza wrote: | The Iraqi army reclaim the town of Baiji (north of Tikrit) from ISIS with some saying it could be a good platform for the offensive planned to retake Mosul at some point in the future.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/10/20/434234/Iraq-army-Baiji-Salahuddin-Daesh
| Quote: | Iraqi forces and volunteer fighters have managed to liberate a major northern town from the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, military officials say.
The spokesman of Iraq’s Joint Military Command Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said on Tuesday that army troops and paramilitary fighters, known as Popular Mobilization Forces, retook the town of Baiji in Salahuddin Province earlier in the day.
Baiji is located about 180 kilometers (112 miles) south of the major city of Mosul, which fell to the Takfiri militants in June 2014. The town, which is home to Iraq’s largest oil refinery, has been the scene of fierce clashes between terrorists and pro-government forces over the past weeks. |
|
Good stuff, how far into the future?
Does that oil refinery have anything to do with success or failure?
Just imagine if they all looked at each other and saw flesh, hair, eyes to the soul, instead of Islam, Isis, Christianity. It's just crazy. I don't get how anyone blows away another human being for no good reason at all. Doesn't feel the pain of their bullet in their dreams.
If their was no religion, would their be no wars, or would they just find another excuse for their thirst for power and money?
_________________
You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
|
|
|
|
Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Three of the most murderous regimes; Stalinist Soviet Union, Mao's China and Nazi Germany were all atheist or in the case of Germany, only nominally religious. Adding to that; Genghis Khan's Mongol society was highly pluralist. So religion wasn't at the core of much of the world's greatest violent regimes and empires.
Religion if anything tends to temper violence: Christianity had a deep philosophical debate on what makes a 'just' war for example, and this need to see a war as justified and 'good' in the eyes of God continued well into the 20th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory
Islam however has core tenets calling for aggressive conversion and violence, and has done so since Mohammed himself terrorized the Arab world into submission. Islam could do with some powerful philosophers like Aquinas but the I'm not sure the fractured and literal nature of the religion allows for any kind of revolutionary thought to take seed. Secularisation is probably the world's best bet, but the powers that be seem to want to keep the region chaotic, barbaric and primitive (two of the most secular Islamic nations were Syria and Iraq). |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
^Religious books can be rewritten, given greater or lesser focus, or interpreted away in minutes if it suits; *always have been and always will be*. Islam is no different whatsoever. There is nothing *special* about Islam as a religion just as there is nothing *special* about the US as a country. Both are examples of nonsense exceptionalisms.
Favourable configurations of scarcity, geography (including regional power linkages, not simply fixed physical features), disease, rivals (competition), technology, etc. give ideology political power. Change any combination of those significantly and the ideology will either adapt or die.
All thuggish power centres look pretty much the same historically. The difference now is that competition has fractured many old centres and broken them up, creating dozens of within- and between-country power centres and power chains. Some, like the core financial markets, Big Pharma, Big Tech, the Looney Christian American South, the miners in Oz, or Hyundai and Samsung in Korea are very destructive and can fund all kinds of lunacy, meaning they need to be broken up and exposed to new competitive forces.
The same thing applies to the thuggish power centres of Islam which fund and use these nutty apocalyptic sects as military arms.
Even visiting the Vatican today drove home just how essential having a diversity of power centres is. The interplay between one church and one monarchy somewhere, resulting in two power centres, already gives you a much more complex power play than a monarchy alone. Add the Protestant Reformation and you've created a third wedge. Add a strong nobility to offset two churches and a monarchy and you get more diversity again. Throw in a merchant class and the complexity increases further.
Now, that's basically what you've got within Islam *already* at a significant level except for a few power centres which distort all the rest: The oil economies. Get rid of the funding behind those centres, and the worst of the apocalyptic fundamentalists lose their role as the paid proxy army for the various tyrannical fiefdoms in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and so on.
The same oil (and gas) also funds new apocalyptic tyrannies in North Africa, as well as other authoritarian groups in Central Asia.
If you want to defeat tyrannical power, you take away it's anti-competitive income stream and allow its population to compete on multiple economic fronts, strengthening the whole population but weakening any single crazy sect and eliminating the usefulness of war as there is nothing to singularly dominate.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
Jezza
2023 PREMIERS!
Joined: 06 Sep 2010
Location: Ponsford End
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| think positive wrote: | | Jezza wrote: | The Iraqi army reclaim the town of Baiji (north of Tikrit) from ISIS with some saying it could be a good platform for the offensive planned to retake Mosul at some point in the future.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/10/20/434234/Iraq-army-Baiji-Salahuddin-Daesh
| Quote: | Iraqi forces and volunteer fighters have managed to liberate a major northern town from the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, military officials say.
The spokesman of Iraq’s Joint Military Command Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said on Tuesday that army troops and paramilitary fighters, known as Popular Mobilization Forces, retook the town of Baiji in Salahuddin Province earlier in the day.
Baiji is located about 180 kilometers (112 miles) south of the major city of Mosul, which fell to the Takfiri militants in June 2014. The town, which is home to Iraq’s largest oil refinery, has been the scene of fierce clashes between terrorists and pro-government forces over the past weeks. |
|
Good stuff, how far into the future?
Does that oil refinery have anything to do with success or failure?
Just imagine if they all looked at each other and saw flesh, hair, eyes to the soul, instead of Islam, Isis, Christianity. It's just crazy. I don't get how anyone blows away another human being for no good reason at all. Doesn't feel the pain of their bullet in their dreams.
If their was no religion, would their be no wars, or would they just find another excuse for their thirst for power and money? |
I can't answer the first question in regards to how far away a formidable offensive consisting of the Iraqi army and Shia militias is capable of reclaiming Mosul from ISIS, but losing Tikrit and Baiji means ISIS only has a stronghold in Mosul and the Anbar province (Western Iraq). They've made serious gains in Syria but are losing their grip in Iraq thankfully.
The article I've posted below provides an insight into the importance of reclaiming Baiji and weakening ISIS in a revenue sense.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32663262
_________________
| 1902 | 1903 | 1910 | 1917 | 1919 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1935 | 1936 | 1953 | 1958 | 1990 | 2010 | 2023 | |
|
|
|
|
3.14159
Joined: 12 Sep 2009
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum
|
|
The Rules
FAQ
Usergroups
Calendar
Search
Log in
Register
